Tragedy: A Short Introduction reinvigorates the genre for readers who are eager to embrace it, but who often find the traditional masterpieces too distant from their own language and world.

• Argues that today's most popular television shows and films thrive on the type of violence, passion, madness, and catastrophe first introduced to the stage in fifth century Athens
• Offers selected case studies that exemplify the compelling qualities of tragedy
• Reviews the history of tragic performance and the qualities of the classic tragic hero, and clarifies the role of plot in defining traged
• Analyzes the difference between a tragedy, a catastrophe, and a mere unhappy ending
• Explores the past and future of the tragic form